I've been gardening for most of my life and have been a devoted fan of organic gardening the whole time. It just makes so much more sense to work in harmony with Mother Nature than to fight her. Besides which it is better for the planet and better for our bodies. Here you can see what I'm planting and harvesting, with gardening hints and resources thrown in for good measure.
Mmm. Alright Bambi how many kids are you hiding in there and when are you going to let them out???? I thought it would have happened by now….
Found some cute new signs for my market table. I have had to increase my prices a bit….. soap is now $6
A sugar scrub is this month’s new product
The lilac soap was ready to package. Mmmm. Smells heavenly
Picked up an awesome solar light for the Patchwork Shed.
Digger sniffing around in the car.
Digger went to the veterinarian for his rabies shot and other vaccines. At 5 months he weighs 62 pounds.
Digger digs. That hole is knee high on me.
Mmmm. Looks like some chickens need a new roof pretty soon.
These four little bucklings will soon be wethers. They are all still available and if not sold will go in my freezer when the weather cools off. They are already eating almost as much as adults and the price of hay is going up.
Well I’ve been a bit lazy today. Did chores and cleaned pens until it got too hot. Came in and had some lunch and played on the computer some. And now it’s time to do afternoon chores. One of the reasons I haven’t been posting a lot is my phone battery seems to be dying. Of course it’s only 6 years old….
I spent the morning at our Globe-Miami Farmers Market. Came home, unloaded, ate lunch, fed the bottle baby. Then I went and got feed and went to get a couple things at the grocery store. Got back and started chores. I haven’t had a chance to fix the gate issue on Midnight’s pen and it came down again. Midnight and her twins got out. I got the gate back up and Midnight was easy to catch and put back. Instead of putting the twins back in I put them in with Bashful. They are old enough to begin separating from mom. And since the pens are together Midnight didn’t get too freaked out her boys weren’t in with her. Bashful is a pretty gentle guy and doesn’t seem to mind babies.
Shortly after that we got a heck of a storm. My battery was about to die so no pics of the creek running. A lot of high winds made a mess of tarps and shade cloth. The wind also blew the tin off the chicken tractors and those birds were quite soggy. Silly Digger looked like he was out playing in it the whole time.
Mocha and Posie were up on the hill when it hit and got pretty wet. But mostly they care about eating.
With this rain the flies will be terrible so tomorrow I’ll have to try and work on fly control among other things. And now good night.
Got a few little jobs done on Friday like putting cattle panel over the hole in Posie’s gate
I stuffed the pallet fence with weed tree saplings to help give these girls a little shade in the late afternoon. Would like to extend that some. Have also thought of being able to tie off a little shade cloth high up on the sticks for more shade.
Didn’t really show up in the pic but there’s a huge hole in a fallow garden space. Maybe a rabbit burrow as it looks bigger than most of the ground squirrel holes I’ve seen. Goes quite always down.
Had a lovely time at market and came home to Chocolate and Gazelle going walk about. They even had Posie’s gate open.
Apparently the wooden fence post I hinged to dried out and the pintles are twisting. Got the girls in, temporary fix. Will work on it when it cools down some.
At milking time I discovered there was more to the story. Posie has broken off her small scurs… AND Mocha has blue paint on her horns (like Chocolate and Gazelle. Mmmm so now I wonder if Posie and Mocha got out and they got the other gate open. Mmmm.
Digger looking cute and innocent. He’s getting a little better about chasing the cat and chickens IF I catch him BEFORE he actually does anything. Like we are walking and I see a loose chicken and Digger is paying too much attention to it. If I tell him NO and distract him it’s good.
I have no idea what was sooo interesting under the car.
Tonight’s milking was interrupted by a thunderstorm with a little rain so took even longer than usual. Got the bottle baby, Digger and me some dinner and went to bed.
#appreciation
I appreciate all my customers that help support my crazy life 😀
Feed the chicks. This year’s hatches were about 90% male 😒
Feed all the adults
6:45am off to work. Back about 11:00. Feed me, the bottle baby and Digger. Fill some water buckets. Digger likes to drink out of the hose.
Ran some errands. Came home and while it was hot it was cloudy so I got the gate set on the new pen. Moved Midnight’s boys in. I want to start separating them some during the day.
They didn’t seem too concerned that mom wasn’t around and paid no mind to her hollaring
Milked Posie and Mocha then Midnight. After milking I put her in with her boys. Then I went and got Chocolate and Gazelle. Then I milked Bambi and Storm.
Chocolate is checking the fence out. I realized that I had forgotten to screw the pallets to each other and I hadn’t finished wiring one of them to the T post so it was wobbling. Got that done. And then it was dark.
Ate some dinner and going to bed.
PS. This should have posted on Wednesday but somehow didn’t finish upload
Up at 4:30 outside at 5:00 to hay the goats. Started a batch of soap and started laundry to wash.
The cheese I set last night is ready to drain.
Shade cloth up but I ran out of zip ties.
Found a chain for the gate.
Hung out the pile of udder washing rags I washed earlier
Took hay to my buck Bentley who is staying at my friends house for now. He got a hoof trim while I was there. Realized I was missing a meeting at work. Went anyway because I need zip ties. Meeting was over of course. Realized I had no cash and new debit card hadn’t arrived yet. So go home for $, go back and also get feed.
On the way home. It’s not even 10:00 am. It was actually reading 100 down on the highway.
Check on goats. Got a big piece of tin off the back of the pen so they have more airflow. Water goats and chickens while I’m out there.
Get to taste a White Marseilles fig for the first time. Yummy. Thomas Jefferson brought them to the US from France.
Finished this batch of soap. Unscented with colloidal oatmeal.
Check weather. Supposed to rain next weekend. But we have already exceeded the predicted high for today by several degrees. Afternoon heat check. Chocolate (in back) and Gazelle are fine. I have decided to move Gazelle along so message me if you want to know more.
Got the chèvre draining.
Put away all the milk things I washed last night.
Had toast and cheese for lunch.
Went out and checked on everyone again, filled up water buckets, wet down shade cloth and of course played with baby goats.
Feed & water chickens, pick up eggs. Get ready to milk. Midnight’s udder feels hard so I coax her the milk stand by carrying her twins. So then Chocolate and Gazelle are yelling because they want to go too. Midnight has the tiniest teats ever! They’ll get bigger but it was hard to get much milk out of her. She did super standing for her first milking and after they went back to their pen her boys were nursing. I hope that relieved some pressure. I’ll check her again in the morning.
Bambi is last in the milking line and I decided to move her and Bashful in together in the new pen. Bambi isn’t very nice to Esmarelda, always butting her around. I’m afraid if Storm and her kids get in the way the kid would get hurt. Anyway took some coaxing and manipulating with a pan of grain to get Bashful in. Bambi immediately began yelling and testing the fence and gate. Cross my fingers I did a good enough job.
I grabbed my clippers and trimmed some tree branches to give them something to do. But there was still a lot of yelling even past dark. On the other hand Storm and Esmarelda didn’t seem too concerned that Bambi didn’t come back to their pen.
By the time I brought the milk in the house it was going on full dark. So I filtered milk, washed up all the milk things, a few people dishes, got a bath and went to bed.
